ADDICTS SELL METHADONE TO BUY HARD DRUGS

DRUG addicts are selling their heroin substitute, methadone, which they get
free, to buy hard drugs.

Unlike most other countries where methadone is handed out in single doses
to addicts, it is given over the chemist counter on prescription but in
large bottles.

The head of Dublin's crime committee, Alderman Michael Conaghan, described
this practice as reckless yesterday and he wants a complete overhaul of the
Department of Health's anti-drugs policy.

He has asked senior health board and department officials to attend Dublin
Corporation's Crime Prevention Committee later this month to explain their
protocol on methadone dispensing.

"To have chemists just handing out large bottles of methadone is a joke -
the addicts call it lemonade.

"It is being heralded as a key part of the strategy of dealing with the
heroin problem - but what is happening is reckless in the extreme. It is
just making the problem worse," he said.

Ald Conaghan said that one chemist had about 500 customers and the addicts
were selling off their methadone supplies to buy other drugs to feed their
habit.

"It is totally discrediting efforts to wean people off drugs.

"It is an absolute disgrace as it is undermining the entire drug treatment
strategy," Ald Conaghan said.